As shown in FIG. 16, a conventional positioner includes housing 500. Housing 500 includes drive portion 501 connected to reduction gear 502, and cylinder 503 connected to reduction gear 502A. Cylinder 503, which is driven by drive portion 501 through reduction gears 502 and 502A, is connected at one end to table 504 in such a manner that its center 503A coincides with rotation center 504A of table 504. Cylinder 503 contains composite curl cord 505, which is composed of, for example, an air tube, an I/O signal cable, a power supply cable, and a communication mobile cable (hereinafter referred to as “wires and pipes”) banded in parallel. Composite curl cord 505 forms coiled portion 506 inside cylinder 503.
In the positioner having the above-described structure, a workpiece is placed on table 504. Composite curl cord 505 is connected to a processing device for processing the workpiece, so that electrical signals or air can be supplied to the processing device from outside the positioner (see, for example, Patent Literature 1).
Processing a workpiece using such a conventional positioner requires supplying a large number of electrical signals or air to the processing device.
The conventional positioner, however, has the following matters to consider when the large number of electrical signals or air is supplied by increasing the number of composite curl cords 505.
That is, increasing the number of composite curl cords 505 increases the size of coiled portion 506, thus requiring increasing the inner diameter of cylinder 503 through which composite curl cords 505 are passed. The increased inner diameter of cylinder 503 requires an increase in the install size of reduction gear 502A connected to cylinder 503, thus making the overall sizes of cylinder 503 and reduction gear 502A larger. As a result, housing 500 for housing them is increased in size, and hence, the positioner is increased in size.
Or, in the conventional positioner, when composite curl cord 505 having the large number of wires and pipes is provided on table 504, the number of wires and pipes composing composite curl cord 505, which passes through the inside of cylinder 503, is increased. This leads to an increase in the height (11 in FIG. 16) of the coiled portion 506 of composite curl cord 505 formed inside cylinder 503, requiring cylinder 503 to have a larger height. As a result, the positioner is increased in height.